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Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Transcript

Aleksandr
Buzgalin is a Professor of Political Economy at Moscow State
University. He is also editor of the independent democratic left
magazine Alternatives, and is a coordinator of the Russian social
movement Alternatives, author of more then 20 books and hundreds of
articles, translated into English, German and many other languages.ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore.A
referendum for independence was held in the Ukrainian regions of
Donetsk and Lugansk a couple of days ago. The organizers of the
referendum have declared the region independent and reportedly issued
calls to join the Russian Federation.Here to give us an update on
what's going on in Ukraine is Aleksandr Buzgalin. Aleksandr is a
professor of political economy at Moscow State University. He is also
editor of the independent democratic left magazine Alternatives,
coordinator of the Russian social movement Alternatives, author of more
than 20 books and hundreds of articles, translated into English, German,
and many other languages.Thanks for joining us, Aleksandr.So
we've seen news reports that say that about 90 percent of the citizens
in Donetsk have voted in favor of the referendum. It's a similar figure
to the results that we saw for the vote in Crimea. But I'm wondering how
much widespread there is throughout Ukraine and Donetsk for
independence or federation with Russia. And I've seen a poll from Pew
Research that says that a majority of Ukrainian citizens, about 75 to 77
percent, wants to remain united with Ukraine.ALEKSANDR BUZGALIN,
PROF. POLITICAL ECONOMY, MOSCOW STATE UNIV.: Well, this is a complex
question, and I want to start with a statistic. According to official
figures, in the Lugansk People's Republic--this is Lugansk region, big
industrial region of southeast of Ukraine--81 percent of people came to
vote and 90.5 percent said yes. In Donetsk People's Republic, 74.8
percent came to vote and 89 percent said yes.I want to stress
that they said yes for the independence of these regions as People's
Republic. And this is important to stress, People's Republic. This is
not only a formal name. It's real self-organization of different people.
Of course not everybody of them are angels, and there are different
people who some of them are Russian nationalists, some are supporters of
simply independent development of these regions. Some want to have real
democratic power and not to have people who came and who are using
fascists. And I think majority of people who came to vote are simply
against violence and against using of Nazi and fascist forces in
Ukraine. This is important aspects, and I wanted to stress this and,
importantly, that in the atmosphere of nearly similar with civil war,
referendum took place, and in spite of the military conflicts, people
who were killed, referendum took place. So this is important decision.Of
course, not everything was absolutely beautiful, but this is a
revolution in some aspects. And I think in such situation it's very
difficult to have all formal details of democracy realized in all
aspects. But generally speaking, I think this is opinion of majority. We
have our colleagues who are working, who are fighting in the south and
east of Ukraine in Odessa in Donetsk region, different people who are
simply militants of civil society and who are militants of groups of
defendants, so-called, of people's defense group (I don't know how to
translate it better into English). And everybody said that it was a real
initiative of the people. We had a lot of video in the internet, not
only official video reports, with lines: people were standing two, three
hours in the sunshine, and they were standing in spite of the fact that
it was very big threat to be killed, simply to be killed by artillery,
even, or whatever, and they were standing to give their vote, to say yes
or say no. Ten percent said no.About Ukraine in general, it's
difficult to say, because Ukraine is now very divided. And it's not only
division between southeast and all other part of Ukraine; there are a
lot of contradictions between Kharkiv region and Kiev and so on and so
far. In some aspects this is similar with, maybe, United States after
the end of the Civil War in 19th century, or maybe even in the beginning
of Civil War. South of your country and north-center of your country,
it was two different countries in some aspects, in spite of the fact
that it was one space, one language. Here, by the way, there are two
languages. So it's very contradictory situation. And opinion polls are
very different.Maybe one more example, historical parallel. You
know that just before collapse of the Soviet Union, 70 percent--more
than 70 percent of the citizens of Soviet Union said yes to the Soviet
Union, to the continuation of the life of the Soviet Union. And after
that, in Ukraine, Belarus, in many countries, majority of people said no
to Soviet Union when agreement between Yeltsin and [other guys] was
signed and the Soviet Union disappeared after [disappearance] of
Gorbachev and so on. So this is a revolutionary time, and this
time is very speedy, if I can say so, and also very flexible. There are
progress and regress tendencies, there is revolution and
counterrevolution, and space is divided, time is divided. This is
unusual situation, and it's impossible to use traditional measures,
traditional approaches for the understanding and examination of these
events.WORONCZUK: Well, you also said that Donetsk and Lugansk
are major industrial sites of Ukraine. I'm wondering, like, what kind of
support exists among the owners of industry in the Eastern regions for
the referendum and for the uprisings in the East.BUZGALIN: This
is important question, by the way, because before referendum, majority
of big forces of industry, owners, oligarchs, they were not supporters
of this self-defense of people and they didn't help them. All this
organization was based on the small money which came from the ordinary
people, and they were talking, without that, they don't have money for
normal food, sometimes for medicine, for gasoline for their cars, and so
on. So it was not sponsored by oligarchs.But now some of owners
of huge industrial enterprises in the East/South of Ukraine started to
support a referendum, because they're simply afraid that workers will, I
don't know, nationalize or socialize their enterprises. They say that
we will ask [places] from the West or black--I am sorry; black--right
sector, right-wing nationalist forces for support of--for defense of
their enterprises, of their property. So this is not simple choice even
for big business.For small business it's also not simple, but a
lot of ordinary small farmers and owners of shops and so on supported
this referendum and supported this struggle.Also important, that
miners, workers from the miner factories, they keep mining factories
working, because it's very dangerous for them and for everybody if they
will be closed. So when Ukrainian, Central Ukrainian, Kiev propaganda
says that Russia supports East of Ukraine because they want to stop
production of coal, steel, and so on to have preferences in the world
market, it's not true. Workers are continuing production, and they're
trying to continue production.But from another side, we have
information that Kiev government is now taking bread, taking grain, food
from East of Ukraine, and they want to create shortage of food in the
East of Ukraine. And this is not good idea to act this way with people
of Ukraine. And southeast of Ukraine, this is part of Ukraine.By
the way, I don't know what will be the result of referendum as far as
configuration, geopolitical configuration of their country is concerned.
From one side, if military actions will be continued, if it will be
artillery, airplanes, and heavy weapons, or even simply big masses of
tanks and vehicles and so on used against the regions in the East and
South, I am sure that people will ask Russia to defend them, not because
they want to be part of Russia very much, but because they simply do
not want to be killed. This is also the challenge, and important
challenge.But if it will be peaceful, real peaceful democratic
negotiations, if West will tell to their, I think, puppets--in some
aspects, Kiev government, they are puppets in the hands of the United
States bosses and the NATO. And if Western establishment will tell to
Kiev puppets, guys, you must solve this question by peaceful means, they
will do this. And in this situation, it's very probable that Ukraine
will be normal federal system of states, like United States, like
Russia--but Russia is also a federation, and, for example, in Islam
regions we have two languages. We have very big specific national
traditions, another atmosphere of the life, another holidays. It's a
very big difference inside Russia and no big problems. And this is
Russia, where, from my point of view, regime is not very democratic and
state is not very democratic. So it's not the case, federalization. The
case is that this situation will be very threat to Kiev puppets that
they will be maybe reelected, maybe dismissed simply, because not very
much peoples of Ukraine like modern president or so-called executive
president of Ukraine, and especially more and more people are afraid of
growth of nationalism or right-wing nationalism and semi-fascist
tendencies inside Ukraine.WORONCZUK: So some of the leaders of
the referendum have also called to federate with Russia. What do you see
Russia doing? Do you think that Russia will actually integrate these
regions into the federation if they ask to do so?BUZGALIN: So
Russia is also not one country. We have officials. We have ordinary
people. We have different types of bureaucracy. We have oligarchs. And
this is not one united country.But from another side, in modern situation we have more and more unification of Russian population around Putin.By
the way, for the left, this very provocative, if not, say, more--how to
say?--strong words, if not to use more strong words about Western
establishment and the Kiev government, their behavior provoked a big
growth of Russian patriotism. And in this patriotism we have mixture of
great-power chauvinism, which I hate, and real feelings of people who
wants to have one country, country which will be respectable, country
which can protect their friends, their natives, Russian-speaking people
in other regions, and so on. And also we have growth of anti-Western
intentions among Russians, and even a big part of former liberals,
right-wingers, now became patriots. So this is a very strange mixture
now of restoration of Soviet trends, both positive and negative, a
restoration of some tendencies or traditions of Russian Empire. But in
the same case, it's very big growth and very positive growth of real
feelings, antifascist feelings. I will use only one example. In
Saint Petersburg, May 9, the Day of Victory for Russian people, it was
huge rally, main Prospect Avenue, three kilometers, very broad. It was
full of people who came with portraits of their grandmothers,
grandfathers, fathers, who were soldiers of Second World War. They were
working with these portraits, and it was a whole manifestation of the
unity with generation who defeated fascism. Of course, not only Russia
participated in this war, but everybody stressed that it was Ukrainians,
Belarus people, Kazakhstan people, Uzbekistan people, it was
antifascist struggle in the West and all over the world, really. And
this antifascist uprising, if I can say, if I can use this word, this
growth of antifascist tendencies and intentions to have peace, this is
very important. And in Russia now, NATO is symbol of war. It's
not symbol of defense. It's not symbol of stability. It is not symbol of
guarantee of democracy. In Russia, NATO is transforming step by step to
the symbol of war. And this is very dangerous for international
relations and very contradictory [turn(?)].WORONCZUK: Okay.
Aleksandr Buzgalin, professor of political economy at Moscow State
University, thank you so much for joining us.BUZGALIN: Thank you
very much for opportunity to translate to you opinion of our friends,
colleagues, and my opinion about events in the world, in Ukraine, in
Russia, because this is very important, for us to have open dialog with
you colleagues.WORONCZUK: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

End

DISCLAIMER:
Please note that transcripts for The Real News Network are typed from a
recording of the program. TRNN cannot guarantee their complete
accuracy.

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